“Join the club and bring home the fun with Glee Karaoke and Glee Jukebox – available only on DVD! A talented group of high school misfits transforms into a performing sensation with the help of a dedicated teacher. Through laughter, tears, irreverent humor and unforgettable music, they learn to follow their hearts and chase their dreams.”

“Glee: The Complete First Season” is not rated.

Mini-Review:When I asked our beloved editor Mirko which DVD’s he wanted me to review this week, I was a little surprised to hear him say, “Glee: The Complete First Season.” I’ve never had the time or interest in watching the show when it aired on TV, so it wasn’t exactly at the top of my list to review. But my wife watches the show regularly and I had heard a lot of hype about it, so I thought it would be worth checking out.

Without time to watch the entire series in one weekend, I asked my wife which episode was the best one to check out. She told me the Madonna episode was the definitive one, so I played it. I came away with several conclusions. The first was that I was right about this show – I had no interest in watching it. It’s just not my thing. I had no interest in revisiting high school and this show wasn’t funny enough to get me to relive it. My second conclusion is that the plot of this series is little more than an excuse to string together a variety of musical numbers. This show is entirely about the music. My third observation was that I’d be more impressed if they were doing original songs rather than variations of existing songs. That being said, some of their renditions were clever. I thought some of the medleys of songs and different versions were well done, but not enough for me to buy the “Glee” versions over the originals. I also have to compliment them on their song choices. Any show that uses the music of Journey, Queen, The Beatles, Van Halen, and Kiss can’t be all bad.

“Glee” also has a strong cast. Jane Lynch is the obvious standout as Sue Sylvester. I’ve been a fan of hers for years and it’s fun to see her as the delightfully evil Sylvester. I also liked Jayma Mays as Emma Pillsbury. While she suffered through a lot of terrible films, I thought she was a good actress. It’s good to see her doing well with “Glee.” The rest of the cast is also good but most of them don’t look like they’re in high school anymore.

I’d recommend “Glee” to anyone that loves Broadway musicals and anyone that has moved beyond “High School Musical.” If you don’t fall in either of those categories, you should probably stay far away from “Glee.”

When “Glee” first aired, it was split into two half seasons. This set includes them all together for the first time. There are a ton of bonus features on this DVD set. Keeping with the theme that this show is all about the music, there is a feature to allow you to skip directly to the musical numbers. There’s also a karaoke feature to let you sing along. There’s also a featurette detailing the creation of the Bohemian Rhapsody musical number from the costumes to the choreography. I was amazed to learn they put the whole routine together in two days. There’s also another featurette on the Madonna episode. There are also a ton of other featurettes on the costumes from the show, Jane Lynch, audition videos, and more. These should all make “Glee” fans very happy.